The flight left Bole airport in Addis Ababa at 8.38am local time (6.38am GMT), before losing contact with the control tower just a few minutes later at 8.44am.
“There are no survivors onboard the flight, which carried passengers from 33 countries,” said the state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, which quoted an unidentified source at the airline.
Flight ET 302 crashed near the town of Bishoftu, 39 miles (62km) south-east of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, the airline said, adding that the aircraft was a Boeing 737-800 MAX, registration number ET-AVJ
That model number does not exist, however, and multiple aviation websites later identified it as a new 737 MAX 8, the same plane that crashed in Indonesia in October, killing 189.
The airline said: “Search and rescue operations are in progress and we have no confirmed information about survivors or any possible casualties.”
The flight had unstable vertical speed after takeoff, said the flight tracking website Flightradar24 on its Twitter feed.
At Nairobi airport, many people were waiting at the gate, with no information from airport authorities. “We’re just waiting for my mum. We’re just hoping she took a different flight or was delayed. She’s not picking up her phone,” said Wendy Otieno, clutching her phone and weeping.
Robert Mudanta, 46, was waiting for his brother-in-law coming from Canada.
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